accounting

China’s Debt Bubble: When Will the Ponzi Unravel? « naked capitalism FT Alphaville – Tracy Alloway – The IMF on Germany’s Bank-Asset-Berg Los Angeles, Toledo, Other Cities and States Press Municipal Labor Unions to Cut Pension and…

This is a post which originally appeared at New Deal 2.0 by Eliot Spitzer and Joshua Rosner. Eliot Spitzer is former governor of New York. He blogs for Slate.com.  Joshua Rosner is managing director of an independent financial services…

Here is a good video from Marketplace Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch explaining the mechanics of the now infamous Lehman Brothers 105 transactions. One or two tidbits, first. Even though Hirsch mentions Lehman undertook these transactions to…

Lehman Lehman Whistle-Blower's Fate: Fired – WSJ.com Blogs Beat the Press on the Lehman Brothers Scandal : CJR ABN Amro hielp Lehman bij manipulatie – Het Financieele Dagblad Dealbook Column – At Lehman, Watchdogs Saw It All –…

Over the past few days, a number of major European banks have announced earnings results.  Two of the most dismal results were registered at the British company Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and at Germany’s Commerzbank. However, the…

This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters. “If you don’t fully understand an instrument, don’t buy it.” To the above advice from Emilio Botín, Executive Chairman of Spain’s Grupo Santander, I would simply…

There are a lot of interlocking threads in the Greek saga. One consistent theme that ties all of the different threads together is the fragility of complex systems. In our globalized and complex world of finance and banking, every major…

In the lead-up to the credit crisis, I really didn’t write a considerable amount about second mortgages despite my focus on credit writedowns. At that time, I was more focused on writedowns from securitized mortgage paper (and later…

Employees of US states and cities have much better pension plans than do Average Americans and this is creating some serious budgetary problems, one reason to be very careful in assessing municipal bonds, particularly general revenue ones.…

While many companies can use the huge increase in market returns to mask a looming pension crisis, the problem is still acute. Because of actuarial accounting, pension funding problems are pro-cyclical.  Companies look flush with cash…